Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 39, No. 6, June, 1994

“My son has formed a literary society,” the governor said. “Many of the finest young poets in the country have flocked to Mokpo just to be near him. So many in fact that he had to take refuge in one of my summer houses. There he is known as the Balladeer of the Southern Seas.”

My master listened politely for a while and then abruptly cut him off.

“What are your plans to stop these pirates?”

“Plans?” The governor looked flustered, but he sat up straighter in his chair and took on such a solemn expression that one of his double chins folded in on itself. “The plans — military plans, that is — are to be devised and executed by Captain Yi, the Protector of the Southern Coast. I am an administrator of the province, not an admiral.”

“And the rice yield of Cholla Province has gone down steadily since you took over here five years ago.”

The governor sucked in his breath.

“That is due to typhoons and poor rain during the growing season.”

“There have been no more typhoons under your rule than under your predecessor. Lack of rain can be overcome with mobilization of the peasantry to keep the irrigation systems in good repair. It has been reported to the king that precious water has been scandalously diverted to the farmlands of the rich. People who keep close association with you.”

The governor stood up. “This is preposterous! Who makes such claims?”

“You shan’t know their names, good governor. I will not add to your list of victims for your Provincial Extractor of the Truth. Your torturer.”

The governor’s face turned as purple as his robes. My master swiveled his head.

“Fetch the boy.”

I scurried through the palace, asking questions of whomever I could find, and found the boy in the servants’ kitchen; washed, scrubbed, and wearing a clean new tunic and trousers that were only slightly too large for him. I jerked him away in mid-slurp from a bowl of steaming noodles. He protested but was so slight that he hardly slowed my progress. At the entranceway we found my master. We all bowed perfunctorily to the governor and walked out into the streets of the city of Mokpo.

Inspector Kang strode so quickly that the boy and I had to run to keep up with him.

“Can you imagine the man? Men and women and children placed under his care are being robbed and raped and slaughtered like spring goats, and he says simply that it is not his responsibility? And his clumsy spies. They have been following us since we entered the city. No finesse at all. They stare directly at their quarry instead of following by looking elsewhere and thereby not arousing suspicion. Is he too cheap to hire professionals? Even now they follow us, the base louts.”

I don’t think I had ever seen him so mad. Even when involved in mortal combat. To him, combat was just a series of problems: protective moves to be made, blows to be struck, arrows to be launched. Problems that perhaps came more rapid-fire than your day-to-day problems, but simply a succession of problems nevertheless. Anger or emotion of any kind just got in the way of solving those problems. That was why now, to see him so angry, was more frightening to me than the evil intentions of the governor of South Cholla province or the bloodthirsty assaults of the pirates from the Source of the Sun.

After walking around the city for a while in a very large circle, my master calmed down somewhat.

While he and the boy waited, I entered a tavern and asked some questions. Being a fledgling poet myself, I had been intrigued by the governor’s comments concerning his son’s literary society. The tavern owner was generous with his information and told me of the favored spot of the Poets of the Southern Seas.

I returned to my waiting master and the boy Yong-sok. After a few blocks we entered the place that the owner had recommended as a meetingplace for the literary set of Southern Cholla Province. The Inn of the Diving Crane.

It was a comfortable inn. The floors were made of unvarnished but well-scrubbed wood, and it housed a wineshop under the same roof. My master retired to his room to study his charts, and once the boy saw the sleeping mat and bead-filled pillow in our room, he flopped down and went immediately to sleep. That left me time to slip away to the bathhouse.

Since the shadows of the day were just beginning to get long, the ladies of the Wineshop of the Diving Crane had not yet begun work. I was fortunate enough to find them, upon entering the bathhouse, already immersed in the hot tubs and slapping one another’s backs with the twigs of elms.

Naked, I slipped into one of the tubs and began to chat with them — the aimless chatter of any wandering young man to the ladies of a wineshop. They giggled politely at my weak jokes but were finally impressed by my Seoul accent.

“Are you here with the great Inspector Kang Huang-ho?” one of the most comely of the ladies asked me. Word of his travels spreads quickly in provincial towns.

“Yes. I am his official scribe.”

Their eyes widened.

“An official scribe. You must be a very educated man, young master.”